Silence in the TARDIS
by MysteryGal5
Summary: The TARDIS malfunctions and the Doctor goes to fix it. When Bill's attacked while waiting, she notices strange tally marks on her body and forgets what happened the moment she looks away. As she tries to find the Doctor, she runs into people from his past who are also covered in tally marks. (Short Story)
1. Prologue

**This was originally planned as a Halloween story because, in my head, it was a thriller, but after writing it by hand, I realized that it's not _that_ scary. I actually wrote this about a year ago so let's get on with it!**

**I originally planned this story with Clara but after watching a few episodes of series 10, I realized that I like Bill a lot more.**

**_Copyright_**** \- I do not own these characters. If I did, there would be fewer tears, Bill Potts in series 11, and River meeting 13. **

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Prologue:

A harmless skinny man comes her way her like a person approaching a security camera located in the corner of a ceiling. She doesn't move because she is curious as to what this man could possibly want and she doesn't feel like she's there. It feels like she's making eye contact with him but he's looking an inanimate object rather than a real person.

The closer he is, the more she notices that his face, neck, arms, hands - any form of visible skin on his body is covered in black tally marks. Some are clear marker strokes and others are smudged by his sweat. His pasty skin highlights them more. She could've seen them from a mile away.

He looked like he was running from something or keeping track of something. Maybe he still is.

Either way, she's intrigued to know more.

"They're tricky…" He whispers to her. She notices that he's British like her. "But let me tell you how to survive: every time you see one, mark it on your body. I can't tell you what you're looking for but you'll know it when you see it, even if you won't remember it. You just have to keep track of _something_."

So, she was keeping track of something he was running from, and he doesn't know what that _something_ is.

_Interesting…_

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**I didn't intend for this prologue to be here but it makes the story more interesting.**

_**Stay Tuned**_** \- find out who the people behind the pronouns are as well as what they possibly can't remember.**


	2. Chapter One

**I came up with this story about three years ago. It was in grade eleven economics class and there were some tally marks on the board. That's it. It's one of my weirdest story origin stories to date.**

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Chapter One:

Bill shoots awake when she hears a small explosion in the TARDIS. She gets out of her bed, passing by the vanity with her belongings as she shuffles out the see the Doctor hunched over the main console. He pushes random buttons and pulls random levers while Nardole flips through the TARDIS' instruction manual (which is probably the most ignored stack of paper to ever exist inside this time machine). Sparks shoot out of the console and the TARDIS completely shuts down, prompting the emergency lights to dimly turn on.

"No, no!" The Doctor exclaims, slamming his palms on the console.

"I told you not to push that button," Nardole scolds.

The Doctor huffs in frustration with an irritated eye roll. Even Bill feels bothered by the comment. Nobody needed to be told the obvious, especially when they know they messed up.

"Chill out, Doctor," Bill says optimistically. "We could just enjoy the silence for a bit."

The Doctor's eyes never leave the console. They look glossed with a haunt. "Silence is never enjoyable. It means that nothing is happening which is never good nor true."

He runs off to fix the console and reboot the whole TARDIS. Weirded out by that last statement, Bill and Nardole look at one another and shrug. To them, the Doctor was just being the Doctor.

-o-

Bill returns to her room in the TARDIS and changes from her pyjamas into a striped crop top, high-waisted jeans, and sneakers. As she heads over to her mirror to start applying her makeup, she grunts in frustration as the TARDIS' lights start flickering. With constant distractions, Bill has to repeatedly redo her eyeliner. It was already hard enough to apply a perfect wing on one eye and then have to do it on the other let alone needing to do that while the lights turn on and off. Bill gives up when her intense concentration and possible future seizure end up giving her a migraine so she settles for a sort-of-asymmetric look eye look.

Bill steps out of her room and the issue with the lights causes her head to feel like it's spinning. She forces herself to stop walking and lean against the wall, bending forwards and resting her hands on her knees so she could catch her breath. Bill looks back up and straightens her posture. As she raises one of her hands to put on her forehead, she notices a black line on her hand. Bill moves her hand closer to her face and sees that it's a small tally mark. She licks her thumb on her opposite hand and rubs the line, smudging it away.

Bill wipes her hands on her jeans and starts heading back to the TARDIS's main console. She can't remember where that line came from. She suddenly feels something in her front pocket. Bill pulls it out and sees that it's her eyeliner. That's when Bill concludes that she must have drawn a line on her hand while she was applying it earlier. It only made sense and yet, it didn't at the same time.

Bill looks down at the smudged mark again, suddenly finding more there. As she proceeds to wipe those away, she continues walking. Bill looks up and suddenly stops when she sees a dark figure at the end of the hallway.

"Doctor?" Bill questions. "Nardole?"

The lights flicker and suddenly, Bill's head snaps back in shock. Nothing is in front of her anymore but it feels as if nothing was there, to begin with. She feels like she's forgetting something but just keeps on walking. She returns to the console and Nardole greets her. She feels to winded to say anything back and she isn't sure why.

"Did something spook you?" Nardole asks her.

Bill wraps her arms around herself. "Yeah, I think so but I can't put my finger on what. Why do you ask?"

"You seem to be keeping track."

Bill raises an eyebrow in confusion and Nardole points at his face as a way to tell her to look at her own. Bill looks at her reflection on the console and sees her face covered with groups of tally marks all over them. She suddenly feels her body shaking as her hands rise to her face to see if that was really there. When she sees that her fingertips are stained with eyeliner, she feels scared yet curious at the same time. She feels driven to find out about the supernatural phenomena in a malfunctioning TARDIS.

"Maybe it's a new trend?" Nardole suggests.

Bill laughs a little to herself as she keeps her eyes on the tally marks on her face. "I don't think it is."

Bill looks up for a response from Nardole. She sees him, then she doesn't because the lights go out for a second. They come back and Bill is face-to-face with a tall monster in a tuxedo. It looms over her as she arches backwards. Bill holds onto the TARDIS' console with a tightening grip as she keeps her eyes on it. The monster looked like slenderman if his head was a chewed-up wad of stale bubble gum. Its wrinkled pink head opens the mouth as it points its three over-sized and lanky fingers at her. It makes a growing echoing sound, sparking electricity all around them, and then -

The lights go out all around them and when they come back, Bill finds herself standing up straight with no recollection of what happened seconds ago.

Bill catches the breath she didn't know she lost as she sits on the edge of the console. She feels weird as if she's missing something so important but easily forgotten. Then, she noticed that her eyeliner is half-opened and in her hands. As she twists the bottle shut, she sees a fresh tall mark just underneath her thumb.

"What could that possibly mean?" Bill questions.

"They're tricky."

Bill looks up and almost jumps from not seeing Nardole there. It's the same man who was in her dream. Everything about him is the same - the clothes, the accent, the tally marks all over his pasty skin. Bill doesn't have time to wonder if this is another dream or a hallucination. She hopes that this person has an explanation for what's going on.

"Who are you?" Bill asks.

"But let me tell you how to survive." His voice is almost robotic. "Every time you see one, mark it on your body. I can't tell you what you're looking for but you'll know it when you see it, even if you won't remember it. You just have to keep track of _something_."

_This was her dream_.

Bill's heart rate quicken. "So I do and don't know what I'm looking for? Kind of paradoxical don't you think?"

The man opens his arms. "Look at where we are."

Bill nods. The TARDIS is a time machine where paradoxes were more common than dust. Other than that, she didn't expect the man from her dream to say something off-script.

"Follow me," he orders.

Willingly, Bill obeys. She figures that she'll have a better chance of surviving by his side than on her own. He seems to know what's going on - he even has a marker on a lanyard around his neck. Then, there was her using her too-expensive eyeliner to mark up her skin. If only she came as prepared as him. Speaking of him, who was he? She wasn't going to just mindlessly follow around some stranger who she saw in a dream.

"I'm Bill, by the way," she introduces, "Bill Potts. And you?"

"Rory," he responds, offering her a hand. She shakes it. "Rory Williams."

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**_Stay Tuned _****\- Will Rory and Bill be able to solve whatever is going on? And how is Rory even here?**


	3. Chapter Two

**Alright, we're back. Don't worry about slow updates since I already have all the chapters finished. They'll probably come out every other day.**

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Chapter Two:

"Okay, Rory…" Bill mutters as she follows him down the labyrinth-like hallways of the TARDIS. "How did you get here, how were you in my dream, and what were those things?"

Rory exhales longingly. "You ask a lot of questions."

"It was only three but still, can you blame me for asking? I'm running from monsters I can't remember, marking up my body with my eyeliner, and talking to some random bloke who told me this in a dream."

_A bloke that sort of looks like him._

"Point." Rory takes a break and leans against a wall. "Those creatures are called The Silence."

"You've encountered them before?"

Rory nods. "They were a hassle. I don't know about them much since, well, you can't remember them."

"Tell me," Bill pleads, taking a step closer towards Rory with her hands folded at her chest. "I find comfort in seeking to understand the things that scare and excite me rather than hide from them. Besides, your little knowledge is more than mine and we need it."

Bill's eyes sparkle in sync with the flickering lights. For a moment, she expects Rory to look at her strangely for being so open to the supernatural. But to her delight, Rory smirks a little. She is a good partner to have in this situation.

"The Silence tamper with your memory," he explains. "The moment you look away, you forget they were ever there. That's why you mark yourself while looking."

Bill glances down at her arms and the parts of her midriff that show, gazing at each and every tally mark. She connects the dots, knowing that these are indicators of an encounter even if she didn't know she was doing it. It was sort of like a cheat code to this madness. She could forget she saw a Silence and never forget at the same time.

_A paradox, almost._

When she looks back up at Rory, she notices his eyes fixated on one of hers as if he was focusing. She watches his eyes narrow a bit and his brows furrow. Without even blinking, Rory grabs the marker hanging from a lanyard around his neck. He makes a small stroke on his collarbone without moving his gaze from her eyes.

Bill's body freezes as the electricity sparks around her. She realizes that Rory is seeing the reflection of a Silence that's behind him through her eyeball. Bill looks past Rory and sees the creature standing there, aiming its power at them. She instantly turns on her heel and runs. She didn't realize how weak her body was until she was running for her life - _but why was she running again?_

Bill stops.

She turns around and sees nothing, but feels strange. She feels as if she was just talking to someone but nobody is around her.

It's just…_silent_.

It feels as if her brain restarted and she doesn't like that feeling one bit.

Bill takes another step forwards but unknowingly turns around on her own. It was like her body felt a presence before her mind did. Her hands automatically go to her eyeliner to mark her skin but she isn't seeing a ghoul…_but a goddess._

A tall woman with the longest legs stands before her. When she comes into the light, Bill notices more striking detail about her: the porcelain skin, perfect manicure, round face wrapped in thick red hair - and Bill could go on for days just stating what she sees in this beauty set before her…and she wanted to keep on listing all the mesmerizing attributes. Bill may currently resemble a deer-in-headlights as she ogles over this redhead, but could anyone blame her?

It was because of her beauty that that Bill almost missed the tally marks littered all over her body as well. Her long legs had so much on them that there were no more empty spaces.

"Wow…" Bill exhales in one long breath. "I think I just had an epiphany."

"A what?" The redhead questions.

Bill bites her lower lip in excitement and to hold herself together. _She was Scottish…_ This was the best day ever for her.

"I don't know," Bill responds, "but the word sounds emotionally deep and just wanted to say it aloud. It's actually an English word I never really understood."

The redhead stares at her oddly while Bill is currently dying of embarrassment on the inside and trying to hide it with an extremely awkward grin on the outside.

"What are you looking at?" The redhead asks, a little creeped out and annoyed.

Bill didn't realize that she was staring at her for so long. She needs to play her next answer cool…

"I don't know but it's looking back," Bill responds with a grin and a hopefully playful wink. It didn't help anything and Bill finally realizes why she's still single so she clears her throat. "Uh…I'm Bill. Bill Potts."

"Amy Pond," she responds.

Bill smiles a little. "That's a pretty name."

"Have you sees a Rory?" Amy asks her immediately.

"What?"

"Rory. My Rory. He has this stupid yet perfect face that is almost always impossible to read and looks as if it needs more sun. Have you seen him?"

Bill can see the worry in Amy's eyes as she questions the whereabouts of her Rory. Amy places her hands on the worry lines forming on her forehead and Bill's eyes gravitate towards Amy's wedding band and engagement ring. Did it sting that Amy was married, yes. But still, bless the person who put the ring on her. She can only assume that it's Rory since she called him _her_ Rory, so in that case: bless Rory.

"I have no idea," Bill replies, putting a supportive hand on Amy's shoulder. "But hey, we're both covered in tallies with no idea of anything, so we could help one another."

Amy looks at Bill with a tad bit of hope in her eyes. "You would help someone you don't know look someone else you don't know?"

"While running from monsters I don't know."

Amy laughs a little. "Alright, it's a plan. We'll need to go find The Doctor as well."

"Wait…" Bill pauses. "Are we talking about the same doctor? Because I know there is all this paradox mumbo-jumbo going on."

"You're with the Doctor?"

"I am."

Amy smirks. "Doctor who?"

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**I don't ship Amy/Bill but I can so picture Bill crushing on Amy.**

**_Stay Tuned_**** \- Will Bill and Amy find Rory or their Doctors? Or will they run into more Silence?**


	4. Chapter Three

**Kind of forgot I didn't put this chapter up so here it is!**

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Chapter Three:

Amy and Bill continue trekking down the TARDIS' tentacle-like hallways as the lights continuously flicker. They make sure to monitor each other's bodies in case some new tally marks were to appear (which Bill didn't complain about. Amy was a woman with wit, beauty, and a booty. She could stare all day).

"Who are you to the Doctor?" Amy asks.

"Student, I guess…" Bill mutters. "Who are you?"

"Many things." Amy smiles a little. "He's my imaginary friend."

Bill raises an eyebrow a bit in confusion at how strange that sounds. "But he isn't imaginary, he's real. Unbelievable, but really real. If we're talking about the same Doctor, how could he be imaginary?"

"Imaginary friend come to life, how about that?"

"Still confusing, but sure."

Amy pauses. She looks past Bill for a moment before shrugging. "_Are we _talking about the same Doctor?"

Now, their skepticism comes to the surface, causing them to take a pause from their walking. Because it just came to their minds that if they're somehow talking about the same Doctor, then how could they both be here? Especially since they just met a few moments ago.

"Tweed jacket and bowtie," Amy states about her Doctor.

"No," Bill responds, "greying old man."

"No. Young-looking bloke with a big chin, sometimes he wore a fez."

"Can't be worse than sonic shades on an old man."

Amy cringes a bit. "Try a fez with a bowtie."

"Debatable."

"At least their fashion sense stayed the same over time."

Then, the two of them start laughing at their conclusion that they're both somehow with different Doctors and, yet, they're both still strange. It seems as if all the different centuries and galaxies of trends, he just happens to pick the oddest ones to wear and own.

"But how can we both be here?" Amy asks.

"Time machine?" Bill suggests wildly, opening her arms and spinning on her heel to show where they currently are.

"Still," Amy says, "under the assumption that we're from different parts of time, how are we in the same TARDIS?"

Bill shrugs. "Leak in the time stream? Something with a paradox? The Silence?"

The two women continue walking. They really have no destination or a clue on where they are at the moment. With that in mind, their only plan is to not run into any more Silence and find any Doctor, no matter which one. They run down another corridor and Bill pauses, surprised that even though this area of the TARDIS looks a lot like the others, this one, in particular, rings bells in her mind.

"The console is this way!" Bill exclaims as she starts running ahead.

"Bill, wait!" Amy yells.

But Bill doesn't. She runs into the opening at the end of the hallway and a light shines in her face. Once her eyes settle, she sees the beautiful console in her sight with the Doctor running around it maniacally with Nardole by his side. She takes a victorious breath of fresh air, wanting to cheer and scream to the sky.

"He's here!" Bill exclaims. "Amy, I found - "

She turns around and nobody is there. Bill walks back in the hallway to check but Amy seemed to have disappeared into thin air. Feeling a bit dazed, Bill staggers back towards the console, keeping her eyes on the entrance just in case Amy was too pop up. But that never happens. Bill turns back to the console and climbs up the stairs. The moment the Doctor sees her, he stops fidgeting around and sees the confused exhaustion on her face as she slumps down on the console.

"What happened to you?" The Doctor asks her.

"I'm not sure," Bill replies, straightening up a little. She exhales and puts her hands on her hips. She notices the Doctor staring at her as if he expected more words. "What?"

"Bill, look at yourself."

Bill looks at her arms and sees that she's still covered in tally marks done by her eyeliner, some smeared into enormous smudges. With all of those still there and Amy still nowhere in sight, all with the Doctor's perplexed expression, Bill is stunned into silence; especially because she's the only one littered in tally marks.

"Bill, seriously," The Doctor says slower, "tell me what happened."


	5. Chapter Four

**And this is the final chapter!**

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Chapter Four:

Bill takes a seat on a chair by the TARDIS' console. The Doctor stands in front of her, sitting on the edge of the console with Nardole by his side. She tells them everything from her dream with the monsters that she could only remember by tallying her skin, and running into Amy who was looking for a Rory who she thinks she saw somewhere (maybe in the dream now that she thinks about it). And, in response, the Doctor keeps his chin pinched in thought and nods once. For a moment, it looked like he wasn't even listening.

"Right," The Doctor states, heading back to the console. He plays around with the levers and controls to take them all somewhere new.

"That's it?!" Bill exclaims, jumping out of her chair. "There's nothing else for you to say or do?! There's always drama when I'm around you and all I get is one word and a nod! _Seriously?!_"

"Seriously," The Doctor responds in one breath, casually. "The TARDIS' oxygen levels were malfunctioning. She couldn't breathe and I had to go handle it. It's like when you humans can't breathe and are desperate for air so you - "

The Doctor struggles to find the perfect word so he waves his hands around to try and help. He begins to snap his fingers and spin around, but that doesn't help whatsoever.

"Hallucinate!" Nardole exclaims.

"Exactly!" The Doctor says, clapping once.

Bill isn't sure how Nardole got that word from those actions, but good for him. "So, the TARDIS couldn't breathe so she started to hallucinate and because she couldn't breathe, I couldn't breathe so I started hallucinating."

The Doctor nods and Bill huffs at that striking logic. Maybe that's why she kept on breathing hard that whole time: it wasn't entirely because she was tired from all the running but because she literally wasn't getting any oxygen.

"Then, why was I seeing what she was seeing?" Bill asks.

The Doctor shrugs. "Those were all from my past. Why she was hallucinating them, I have no clue. I never understood a woman's mind."

Bill cringes a little but then nods in agreement. She's dated a fair share of women and since she's still single, she will never understand how women work (and to think that she's a woman).

"Maybe it showed you something dangerous to let you know that you were in danger," Nardole suggests. "It's like subliminal messaging."

"Does this look subliminal to you?" Bill questions, using her arms to show only a glimpse of the tally marks.

"I think you pull it off well."

Maybe if Bill didn't mark herself with her expensive eyeliner and didn't feel exhausted, she would've been more flattered.

Her thoughts wander away from the tally marks and return to what the Doctor said: she was seeing things from his past. Bill doesn't remember the cohesiveness of what happened since her short-term memory was being messed with the whole time.

"So, who was she?" Bill asks. "The Scottish redhead with the princess name."

Bill watches the Doctor tense up a little and she didn't even give a full name. She observes as she composes himself.

"She was my family," The Doctor replies softly.

Bill smiles softly. "You considered your travelling companions as your family?"

"He married into that family," Nardole pipes in.

Bill gasps excitedly as The Doctor gives Nardole a look and Nardole only shrugs in response.

"You married Amy?!" Bill exclaims. "She was _your wife_?! I always wanted to ask you about your wedding ring and now I know. I can't believe it. You lucky old man. I mean, she's got some fine, _fine_ legs."

Bill finds herself licking her lips at the fantasy in her head. When she focuses back on reality, she sees Nardole and The Doctor staring at her with deadpanned expressions. Lucky for Bill, she doesn't feel the least bit ashamed.

"Amy was not my wife," The Doctor corrects. "She was only Rory's."

"Oh…" Bill mutters. "…so, how are you on the family tree?"

"She was his mother-in-law," Nardole replies.

"Doctor!" Bill exclaims more excitedly this time. To her, that revelation was even better than Amy being his wife.

The Doctor sighs to himself as Bill radiates this surprise and with the tally marks all over her body, shock was a good look on her. He can't help but think back to his days with Amy, Rory, and even River. They were his family. And although he seems like someone incapable of emotions, he needs to be around people he cares about. He was an introvert only because he is basically immortal and defied time. It only reminds him of all he lost.

And that was only a few years of his life which feel like a second compared to his lifetime.

But, at least for now, he has Bill and Nardole. He's happy.

"Where are Amy and Rory?" Bill asks. Her dropped expression indicates that she has a hint on their outcome.

"They died," he replies immediately.

Bill's smile falters. "Oh, Doctor, I'm so sorry." She quickly tries to alleviate the sudden tension. "So, the TARDIS still remembers them?"

"She never forgets a face." He lovingly pats the console. "And neither do I." He glances at all of Bill's tally marks again. "Go wash those off."

"I was going to."

Bill turns to go wash her face and arms but stops when a drawer below the TARDIS' console pops open on its own. Bill looks inside and laughs a little when she pulls out a package of makeup wipes. She really is a woman.

"Thanks, girl!" Bill explains. The TARDIS lights up a little as Bill takes out a wipe to start wiping all the tallies and smears away. "So, Doctor, where are we going now?"

"Somewhere with noise," he responds.

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**Thank you all for reading this story! Please let me know what you thought. If any of you have a story idea for me to write, don't be afraid to tell me about it. Or if you have a story you want a beta for, I'm available.**

**~ MysteryGal5**


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